Bill Koch's Aspen Ranch Hits The Market For $89.999 Million

Billionaire Bill Koch has listed his 59-acre Aspen ranch, a party-venue-turned-private residence, for $89.999 million, making it the most expensive home for sale in Aspen.

The main, 15,000-square-foot home is a massive log cabin that was a shell when Koch purchased it in 2007 for $26.4 million, says Mark Curley, CEO of Centurion Residential Services, which oversees Koch's personal properties. Koch kept the log exterior and finished out the interior, even digging out the original basement. "In essence, it’s 90 to 95% new," say Curley.

The main house now boasts seven bedrooms with five full and four half baths. Also included in the $90 million price tag are several other structures: an indoor gym which sits over a 4-car heated garage, workshop and laundry; a carriage house; a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath guest house; a caretaker's office; four additional guest cabins; and two hot tubs. All told, the main home and additional structures house 23 bathrooms. Two thousand feet of the Castle Creek flow through the property, an outdoorsman's paradise with two fishing ponds and easy access to hiking, biking, motorcycling and four-wheeling. The ranch estate also has a staff in place to manage it.

Though Koch paid less than one-third of the $90 million to acquire the lodge and surrounding land, he has put more than $100 million into the property total, Curley says. The billionaire also paid $26 million for three adjacent properties formerly owned by the Solomon family, which he purchased these under three separate LLCs dubbed American Lake, Ashcroft, and Crystal. On top of the roughly $52 million total purchase price, "He spent that again upgrading the real estate that’s there," says Curley.

Not included in the property but also available for purchase are two more homes on a contiguous 29 acres: the Crystal House, a 7,800-square-foot four-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath home with an indoor basketball court, and the Ashcroft House, a 7,500-square-foot, five-bedroom, four-and-a-half bath home.Koch has not yet named a price for these additional assets.

The original owner of Elk Mountain Lodge intended to use the ranch as a bed and breakfast, but when that didn't work out sold the property to someone who converted the building into a wedding and party hall, says Glenn Horn, an Aspen land use planner who has worked on the property. In the 1930s, the property was a dude ranch, Horn said.

Although the ranch is not on a private road, the neighbors are few. "The driving distance is approximately 15 to 20 minutes from the center of Aspen, on a beautiful mountain road," says Tim Estin, a broker at Aspen Snowmass Sotheby's InternationalReal Estate. About 1.5 miles beyond the Koch property, the road dead ends at Ashcroft Ski Touring, a day cross-country resort, and the high-end Pine Creek Cookhouse restaurant.

Koch is selling the property because he doesn't spend much time there, says Curley. A property connoisseur, the billionaire in 2013 paid $19.5 million for Rachel Lambert "Bunny" Mellon's former Cape Cod estate. He's also built a 50-building replica of a Wild West town on his Bear Ranch in Paonia, Colorado, where he spends most of his time in Colorado, Curley says.

Bill Koch is the president of
Oxbow Carbon, a firm that mines and markets energy and bulk commodities including coal, natural gas, petroleum, metallurgical and calcined coke, the critical ingredient in the making of aluminium. The company also markets petroleum coke, a byproduct of the oil refinery process. His brothers Charles and David (his twin) Koch together oversee
Koch Industries, America's second-largest private company, and are the richest siblings in the world (and the the sixth-richest people in the world) according to FORBES. The brothers are well known for their support of conservative political causes.

Bill Koch tried to take control of Koch Industries in 1980, but was fired. With brother Frederick, he then sold stakes back to the other brothers for over $700 million in 1983. He spent 18 years suing, finally settling after jury awarded them zero in 1998.

The Elk Mountain Lodge property was first listed in June, and first reported by the local Aspen Daily News. The next most-expensive listing in Aspen is half the price of Koch's property, an 18,750-square-foot, 7-bedroom home listed for $45 million, according to the MLS.

In a bizarre legal case, one of Koch's former Oxbow Carbon employees claimed he was kidnapped and interrogated on Koch's Colorado ranch; a countersuit alleged the former employee embezzled and lied about being kidnapped. Those matters are working their way through court.

I’m a staff writer at Forbes covering real estate: from ultra-luxury homes to foreclosures to the people making the deals happen. Until recently, I was a member of our Forbes wealth team, crunching numbers for our Forbes 400 and World’s Billionaires lists. Before that I inve...